Shadowing Practice: 5 Questions to Ask Yourself Every Evening - Learn English Speaking with Video

Creando lección...
1
Thank you.
2
Thank you.
3
you Our minds are some of the busiest places in the known universe.
4
It's estimated that under a deceptively calm exterior,
5
some 70 ,000 separate thoughts hurry through consciousness from the moment we wake up to the time we slip into sleep.
6
What many of these thoughts have in common is that we seldom do them any kind of justice.
7
The result is a kind of sensory overload and an immense difficulty processing what we've actually been through.
8
We don't have time to feel the anger we're beset by.
9
We don't have the wherewithal to give room to the sadness that nags at us.
10
We can't on too many occasions properly think our own thoughts or feel our own feelings.
11
But these thoughts and feelings do need to be understood and will protest more or less actively when they're not.
12
Anger that hasn't been given its due will emerge as irritability.
13
grief that hasn't been honoured will metastise into aimlessness and despair.
14
What we call 'mental illnesses' are usually the outcome of periods of our lives
15
that we haven't had the strength or opportunity to understand or mourn.
16
What can help our troubles is self -exploration.
17
And that's why we've produced five questions
18
that we suggest can be rehearsed every evening on a regular basis and will help to appease the sources of our troubles.
19
First question.
20
What am I really worried about?
21
This question recognises something rather unusual about how we operate.
22
We frequently don't stop to ask ourselves what we're truly worried about.
23
This sounds odd.
24
Surely, if we're worried, we would be expected to pause rather quickly and explore why.
25
But our minds seem not to work in this supremely logical -sounding way.
26
They feel anxious long before they're ever motivated to ask themselves why they might be so.
27
they can carry on for months, even years, under the fog of diffuse concern,
28
before setting themselves the challenge of zeroing in on what is really at stake.
29
So the question bids us to stop running and to turn around and look at what might actually be ailing us.
30
The use of the word really is strategic.
31
We often use one worry to shield us from another.
32
We worry about an upcoming interview to protect us from worrying about the state of our relationship.
33
We worry about money in order not to worry about death.
34
So, it can be helpful to keep a supplementary inquiry in mind: what worry might lie behind the worry
35
that is currently obsessing me?
36
Second question: What am I presently sad about?
37
We can make a generalisation: we go around being far braver than is good for us.
38
Because we need to get on with the practicalities of the day, we frequently push to the side all the slights,
39
hurts, disappointments and griefs that flow through our river of consciousness.
40
We choose not to notice how vulnerable we are for fear that we cannot afford our own sensitivity.
41
But stoicism and strength carry their own dangers.
42
With the help of this question, we should give time to noticing that despite our competent and strong exteriors,
43
lots of smaller and larger things have managed to hurt us today, like every day.
44
Perhaps someone didn't laugh when we told a joke, our partner has been a little distant of late,
45
a friend didn't call, a senior figure at work was less than completely impressed.
46
We don't need to mock ourselves.
47
We aren't weaklings for being fragile.
48
In fact, there is no clearer evidence of our maturity than our capacity to explore the ways in which we, like everyone else on the planet,
49
are a sensitive and easily bruised as a child.
50
Third question.
51
Who has annoyed me? And how?
52
We want to be polite, of course.
53
We're attached to the norms of civilisation.
54
It upsets us to think we might be upset.
55
Nevertheless, here too, we need to have the courage of our actual sensitivity.
56
No day goes by without someone annoying us in some rather fundamental way, usually without them in any way meaning to.
57
Our spirits will be lighter if we can bring ourselves to spell out the injury.
58
What happened?
59
How did it make us feel?
60
What might we tell ourselves to re -find equilibrium?
61
If we were lucky, we used to do this sort of thing with a kindly parent when we returned home from school.
62
Now, as careful guardians to ourselves, we can internalise the process and use our inner adult to soothe the always easily flustered,
63
but also easily calmed, in a child.
64
Fourth question.
65
What does my body want?
66
Much of what we feel but don't process has a habit of ending up in our bodies.
67
That's why we develop backache, tense shoulders, knotted stomachs and fluttery hearts.
68
In order to live more easily around our bodies, we should regularly drain them of the emotions that they have unfairly been burdened with.
69
We should mentally scan our bodies from top to toe and ask ourselves what each organ might require.
70
What do my shoulders want to tell me?
71
What would my stomach want to say?
72
What does my back need?
73
What do my legs crave?
74
The questions may sound strange, What is surprising is that we're likely to have some very concrete answers just waiting for us when we ask.
75
Fifth question.
76
What is still lovely?
77
Despite so much that's difficult, every day brings us up against a range of things that still delight and enchant us.
78
Often these elements are small: the light on the kitchen wall in the morning, a child holding its parent's hand at the bus stop, a fig we had at lunchtime.
79
These might not sound like things we should bother to register.
80
But, summoned up in their full richness and held in our attention for a few moments, they can help to fortify us against the voices of despair.
81
We tend to assume that if something is lovely, it will strike our minds as being so, with full force, without us needing to do anything supplementary.
82
The reality is stranger.
83
We need to make a conscious effort to squeeze joy out of beneficial elements that might otherwise be forgotten without notice.
84
Our lives have some lovely aspects to them.
85
But we may, surprisingly, regularly and rather clumsily, have to make a list of them in order to realize that they exist.
86
When Socrates, apparently the wisest man of antiquity, was asked to define our highest purpose as human beings,
87
he offered a still legendary answer: to know ourselves.
88
We should aspire to be people who never cease to try to make sense of themselves at the close of every day.
89
We should devote ourselves constantly to trying to shrink the scale of the darkness within us, bringing what was once in shadow closer to the light of interpretation.
90
so that we stand a chance of becoming slightly less frantic and rather more joyful, creative and calm creatures.

Vocabulario y notas de pronunciación para esta lección

Esta lección de conversación de nivel B2 se basa en el vídeo “5 Questions to Ask Yourself Every Evening”. Este vídeo tiene 90 frases y 1168 palabras para practicar shadowing. La parte hablada dura 7:22. El hablante habla a un ritmo natural de unas 158 palabras por minuto, cercano a una conversación cotidiana. El 83 % de las palabras está entre las 3.000 más comunes del inglés; conviene repasar el resto antes de empezar. 14 de sus 90 frases son preguntas, así que sirve para practicar la entonación de las preguntas y las respuestas cortas.

Vocabulario clave de este vídeo

Las 15 palabras más avanzadas del vídeo, con su pronunciación y significado:

PalabraPronunciaciónSignificado
annoy verbo/əˈnoɪ̯/enchilar, crispar
supplementary adjetivosuplementario, supletorio
despair sustantivo/dɪˈspɛə(ɹ)/desespero
exterior adjetivo/ɪkˈstɪɹiɚ/exterior
sensitivity sustantivo/ˌsɛn.səˈtɪv.ə.ti/sensibilidad
grief sustantivo/ɡɹiːf/pesar, pesadumbre
consciousness sustantivo/ˈkɑnʃəsnəs/conciencia
antiquity sustantivo/ænˈtɪk.wə.ti/antigüedad
appease verbo/əˈpiːz/apaciguar
aspire verbo/əˈspaɪɚ/aspirar, ambicionar
backache sustantivo/ˈbækeɪk/dolor de espalda
bruise sustantivo/bɹuz/moratón, moretón
clumsily adverbiotorpemente, toscamente
enchant verbo/ɪnˈt͡ʃænt/encantar, embelesar
fluttery adjetivo/ˈflʌtəɹi/de aleteo / aletada

Phrasal verbs que vas a escuchar

PalabraSignificado
get on with verbohacer, realizar
go around verbocundir
turn around verbodarle una vuelta, dar(se) una vuelta

Frases que vale la pena repetir

Frases cortas y completas del vídeo que puedes reutilizar en la conversación diaria:

  • What am I really worried about?
  • How did it make us feel?
  • What might we tell ourselves to re -find equilibrium?
  • What does my body want?
  • What do my shoulders want to tell me?

Gramática en este vídeo

Las estructuras que más usa el hablante, con las palabras exactas del vídeo:

EstructuraEn el vídeo
Oraciones condicionales if + oración, will/would + verbo — una condición y su resultadoif we're worried, we would be · if something is lovely, it will strike
Voz pasiva be + participio pasado — importa lo que ocurre, no quién lo hacebe understood · been given · been honoured
Present perfect have/has + participio pasado — una acción pasada que sigue importando ahorawe've actually been · hasn't been given · hasn't been honoured

Pronunciación a tener en cuenta

El hablante usa 21 contracciones y formas reducidas, como don't, we're, didn't. Dilas en su forma corta, tal como las oyes.

  • Los sonidos de “th”: soothe /suːð/, wherewithal /ˈwɛɚ.wɪ.ðɔl/
  • Los sonidos de “sh” y “zh”: consciousness /ˈkɑnʃəsnəs/, civilisation /ˌsɪv.ɪ.lɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/, beneficial /ˌbɛn.ɪˈfɪʃ.əl/, anxious /ˈæŋkʃəs/, conscious /ˈkɑn.ʃəs/
  • Palabras largas — cuida el acento: sensitivity /ˌsɛn.səˈtɪv.ə.ti/, antiquity /ænˈtɪk.wə.ti/, civilisation /ˌsɪv.ɪ.lɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/, deceptively /dɪˈsɛptɪvli/, internalize /ɪnˈtɝnəlaɪz/

Sonidos difíciles para hispanohablantes:

  • s + consonante al inicio — sin añadir una “e” delante: stoicism /ˈstoʊɪsɪzəm/, squeeze /skwiːz/, scan /skæn/, stake /steɪk/
  • /v/ — no es /b/: los dientes tocan el labio inferior: sensitivity /ˌsɛn.səˈtɪv.ə.ti/, civilisation /ˌsɪv.ɪ.lɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/, deceptively /dɪˈsɛptɪvli/, overload /ˌəʊvəˈləʊd/, devote /dɪˈvəʊt/
  • /z/ — sonora, no /s/: appease /əˈpiːz/, bruise /bɹuz/, civilisation /ˌsɪv.ɪ.lɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/, diffuse /dɪˈfjuz/, internalize /ɪnˈtɝnəlaɪz/

Cómo practicar con este vídeo

  1. Escucha el vídeo entero una vez sin hablar y anota las palabras que no conoces.
  2. Empieza a velocidad 0,75×, haz shadowing frase por frase y vuelve a la velocidad normal cuando te resulte fácil.
  3. Grábate y compara con el original, prestando atención a palabras como annoy, supplementary, despair.

¿Qué es la Técnica de Shadowing?

Shadowing es una técnica de aprendizaje de idiomas respaldada por la ciencia, desarrollada originalmente para la formación de intérpretes profesionales y popularizada por el políglota Dr. Alexander Arguelles. El método es simple pero poderoso: escuchas audio en inglés nativo y lo repites en voz alta de inmediato, como una sombra que sigue al hablante con solo 1-2 segundos de retraso. A diferencia de la escucha pasiva o los ejercicios de gramática, el shadowing obliga a tu cerebro y músculos de la boca a procesar y reproducir simultáneamente patrones de habla reales. Las investigaciones muestran que mejora significativamente la precisión de la pronunciación, la entonación, el ritmo, el habla conectada, la comprensión auditiva y la fluidez al hablar, convirtiéndola en una de las metodologías más efectivas para la preparación del IELTS Speaking y la comunicación en inglés en el mundo real.

Técnica de shadowing: lee la guía completa paso a paso →